Before the invasion, Saddam Hussein faced massive internal problems in Iraq, the nature of which which the Blair/Bush camp never properly recognised. Hussein was only clinging onto power and resorting to his terrible methods to do this. The economy was in a state of collapse, whilst Hussein grabbed what he could via his excessive use of crude state power. However, what was mainly clandestine opposition came from significant elements of three main sources – the Shia, the Kurds and those who believed in democracy. Of course, the later included Shia, Sunni, Kurdish and secular elements. This tradition's greatest expression was the mass rally in Baghdad on May Day 1959 attended by almost 10% of the Iraqi population pushing for democratic institutions. That such values still exist was shown in the immediate movement to set up the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions once the 2003 invasion took place. A movement supported by Iraqi Labour Movement activists, numbers of whom returned from exile. Those forming the IFTU were opposed to the invasion, but saw that they needed to act in line with their commitments to attempt to rescue Iraq and build a future. They weren't alone for there are wide forces who have since pressed for civil rights and the basic standards of life.

If without an invasion, Hussein had somehow managed to hold onto power until now, then what impact would recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have had in Iraq? Serious efforts by the groups I mention above would have arisen to seek to remove him from power and the international debate would have now been about what we would need to do to aid active opponents to Hussein’s regime. In fact if the invasion of Iraq in 2003 had never taken place, the first uprisings against extreme dictatorship could well have arisen in Iraq well before it was ever triggered in Tunisia. To deny this clear possibility is to fail to understand the people of Iraq.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

A Conference with the above title was held in Rotherham on Saturday. I suspect that a number of democratic socialists (but thankfully not all) were put off attending when they saw that it was organised by the local Rotherham MP Denis MacShane and that Gerald Kaufman and David Owen were key participants. For at first glance it looked like an anti-left stitch-up. And indeed this might have been part of its intention.

The title of the Conference refers to the General Elections which followed Ramsay MacDonald setting up a National Government, the Attlee Government running out of steam and Michael Foot becoming leader of the Labour Party. These elections led to Labour being in a minority position in parliament for three periods which each spanned between 13 and 14 years.

The implications behind the title being that to avoid such periods in the wilderness, Labour should have stuck behind Ramsay MacDonald, obtained a more dynamic leader than Attlee if Bevanism was to have been nipped in the bud, and just never ever have acquired Michael Foot as leader as he was a loser. The conclusion which is thought to follow from such an approach is that a right wing New Labour agenda is needed in current circumstances.

But as we had a seven hour day with only short breaks and contributions from a series of independently minded academics, Polly Toynbee and others, plus audience participation; other lessons emerged. In fact in the concluding comments of the day from Andrew Gamble a Professor of Politics at Cambridge, he pointed out that the most telling collapse of Labour support emerged in the 1970s and not in the three periods stressed in the title. He could have added that in the ten General Elections from 1974 the Labour vote has only twice topped the 40% mark, yet this level was comfortably surpassed in all the nine post-war elections which proceeded that date. Perhaps if all that talk in the Labour Movement in the early 70s about developing a Social Contact had actually led to the development of a social bond that would have moved us in the direction of sharing, decency and social equality, then our support would not have fallen below the 30% mark in 1983 and 2010.

We were in danger of being provided with a selective one sided diet of the left's failings, covering Jimmy Maxton, Nye Bevan, Michael Foot, past Communist Trade Union leaders, the Ban the Bomb movement, Tony Benn and Militant. But this would hardly amount to a serious analysis. An early contributor David Howell pointed out that Labour support in 1945 was particularly strong amongst first time voters, which covered all those who had not qualified to vote in the previous General Election which was then way back in 1935. This was a cohort of voters who went on to help sustain the Labour vote in numbers of other early post-war elections. The question this leads to is just where can we find such a cohort today who have a clear interest in sharing and equality? What about today's young voters who are concerned about Student Fees, the loss of the Educational Maintenance Allowance, a lack of jobs, a world facing massive shortages of essentials, the dangers of climate change and the horrors of third world poverty? If we bring the young on board on such issues we do more than gain a political advantage, we help to revitalise our own beliefs.

Any conference which provides scope for the dialectics of debate, soon moves out of the realm of political propaganda into that of much needed world of political education; something which invariably takes over when carefully expressed disputes and disagreements arise. Even the anti Michael Foot line which was pressed by Kaufman and Owen, provides scope for countervailing considerations. Just why in 1983 did Michael Foot's leadership produce the worst percentage turn out for Labour of any General Election since 1922? Was it all due to his unilateralism, his duffle coat and his left-wing credentials? What about the knock on consequences of Thatcher running a highly populist and successful military campaign over the Falklands, and then there was the massive rupture within the Labour Party which led to the formation of the SDP? David Owen was at the centre of the breakaway and bares a major share of that responsibility for that 1983 election result.

Around 15 speakers made contributions, numbers of whom had sufficient interest in the topic to join the rest of us in the audience over the seven hours. I have always believed that speakers should also be listeners. Even when Hestor Barron confined her remarks to the experience in Durham Mining Constituencies in the 1930s, my concentration did not drop. But then she was discussing the area of my roots and I have read her book on the Durham Coalfield at the time of the 1926 Strike.

The day revealed an important issue for Labour if it is ever to maintain its future and reach its potential. It needs political education, political education, political education. So it is all power to Denis MacShane's elbow. He may have helped to produce something that has more significance than anything he probably ever had in mind.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Whilst I detested Saddam Hussein's Regime, I fully opposed the invasion of Iraq believing that it would produce the type of death, destruction and mayhem which followed. Furthermore, I would still have actively opposed an invasion even if a United Nations' Resolution had been adopted to legitimize it. The argument that Iraq could be invaded because Saddam Hussein held weapons of mass destruction was nonsensical. Either he held no such weapons and the case (as it turned out) was false, or he held such weapons and attacking him would have been like prodding a mad dog with a stick. He would have used such weapons and the result would have been even worse than it was.

This did not mean that I felt that he should just have been left to his own devices. There was the strongest obligation upon the international labour movement to support clandestine forces in Iraq (and their supporters in exile) who were struggling for democracy and for trade union and other rights. Although in today's Iraq such pressures now have more open (but still imperfect) avenues of expression, we still need to provide our full backing for them. Not least because Saddam Hussein's anti-trade union laws still remain in existence.

If the invasion had not taken place and if Saddam Hussein and his sons had somehow held onto state power since then, then just imagine what the impact of the current situation in the Arab World would have been upon Iraq. There have already been demonstration in Iraq as a consequence of the protests across North Africa and the Middle East. These current actions in Iraq would have been deeper and more desperate if they had been directed against a contemporary Saddam Hussein.

What would we have done to come to the aid of democratic forces in Iraq in such circumstances? Would the type of United Nations' Resolution which has just been adopted over Libya (which excludes occupation) have been acceptable to people who thought as I did in 2003? I know that we can't control a conflict situation, nor fully restrain western military might from going over the top, nor stop western governments from having hidden agendas. But the option over Libya is to either sit back and give Gaddafi a free hand, or to back the United Nations and the Arab League. Doing the latter does not have to mean that we can't press against excesses by western powers. But democrats throughout the world have no influence over Gaddafi.

Libya in 2011 is not a repeat of Iraq in 2003. Nor might Iraq in 2011 have faced the same position as the one that was disasterously forced upon it in 2003. Circumstances do alter cases.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Some of the members of a group of Derbyshire Miners in 1960 who have just completed a three year Day Release Course. They are presenting miners' lamps to their tutors who are the men wearing glasses. On the left is Noel Williams of the Workers Education Association who taught economics and on the right is the politics tutor Royden Harrison from Sheffield University Extramural Department who was a leading Labour Historian and whose final book was to be "The Life and Times of Sidney and Beatrice Webb : 1858 to 1905 the Formative Years". From left to right, the students are Les Ralley who became a leading figure on both his local District and Parish Councils, a 27 year old Eric Varley who four years later was to embark upon his parliamentary career and became a Cabinet Minister, W. Whitaker, E. Lawrence presenting the lamps, E. Bradbury and N. Wade. The nature and significance of such courses is indicated below. A meeting is to be held on May Day in Chesterfield to discuss how far the tradition they were part of can be revitalised in modern circumstances. Details of the meeting appear at the close.

Under Bert Wynn who was Secretary of the Derbyshire Miners, a programme of Day Release Classes was established in 1952. These continued in operation for the next four decades, but finally ended as a consequence of the closure of the local pits. Miners attending studied subjects such as industrial relations, economics and politics.

A new class of 20 miners was established each year. They came to span a three year period and involved a total attendance of 120 days. The tutors on the courses came from the Sheffield University Extramural Department. The Derbyshire Miners having an agreement with the National Coal Board (NCB) to release their members from work to attend the classes.

Those attending required no prior educational qualifications; nor were any exams, tests nor marks ever provided. However, because the supply of places on the courses was always outstripped by the demand, selection conferences were held in the Miners Offices on Saltergate by the tutors where the applicants met together in discussion groups and participated in a note-taking exercise. A Saturday morning class also came to be run for those who it was felt would benefit from a preparatory development of their student skills; many of these miners moved onto the full Day Release Courses and made highly effective use of the abilities they had developed.

The miners on the courses also engaged in private study and produced a steady stream of written work. After their time on the courses, the participants went on to make a variety of uses of their studies. Some becoming more deeply involved in the work of the National Union of Mineworkers, other progressed through the NCB, numbers became involved in the work of the wider labour movement including those who became local councillors, whilst the late Eric Varley and Denis Skinner became local MPs, others moved into full-time studies at Adult Education Colleges and then often went on to obtain degrees at University before taking up posts such as social workers, educationalists and full-time trade union officials. Others remained in their established roles in their communities, taking their newly developed interests with them and also influencing communal developments.

I was lucky to be a tutor on the courses for 21 years from 1966, before becoming a local MP for a further 18 years. I have always claimed that the standard and seriousness of the investigations in the classes was more substantial than was the general run of my experiences in parliament. This is because serious adult education is about making well thought out judgements on complex issues, whilst parliamentary politics is too often about point scoring.

The pattern which was established in Derbyshire was pursued elsewhere. The Extramural Department were involved with similar courses in areas such as the South Yorkshire Coalfield, the Steel Industry, the railways, engineering and with Shop Stewards Courses which drew people together from differing firms.

It was not, however, just because of the decline of large industries mainly concentrated in the public sector, that such courses were ended. Another pattern of adult education (which had always had its own separate existence) took over but was manipulated under Margaret Thatcher. Unfortunately, it became a growing trend that was then pushed under New Labour. What remained of day-release work was often placed under the influence of employers, whose interests were to see their workers being trained to undertake tasks strictly relevant to their employment duties. More emphasis was placed upon adults attending courses in their own time, which would be carefully accredited to meet specific and limited purposes. Certification became the order of the day. The way for adults to progress via education came to be seen as requiring studies to be broken up into specific and limited modules and tested at each stage, so they could act as stepping stones (or some would say stumbling blocks) to higher qualifications. The scope for investigating key issues about life and society were restricted and were seen as secondary. The old form of equality and socialising between tutors and students, in which each learnt from the other, was seen as being unnecessary. Increasingly course fees were expected to cover the bulk of the provision of adult education.

It is not that there should be no room for some forms of today's dominant trend in adult education, but it should never have happened at the expense of the invaluable approach which the Derbyshire Miners had participated in and developed.

Nothing in life is, however, ever too late. Some of us have always attempted to replicate something of what used to be called the liberal education tradition by running and attending a variety of discussion groups. But it is now time to campaign for what was taken away from us. We are not alone in this.

Why not join us at the meeting advertised below? Former participants in the Derbyshire Miners' Day Release Classes will be present. But we know that we can't somehow just try to re-cycle the past. It is a matter for all of us to seek new ways in which what was once achieved in a period from the 1950s can be refashioned to meet the challenging conditions of the 21st Century. We owe many debts to Coal Mining in Derbyshire; serious adult education is one of them.

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Joel Wing of California has been researching and writing about Iraq since 2002. He runs a fine blog entitled "Musings on Iraq". Today he surpassed even himself. See the five items he posted today at 7.14 am 7.15 am California time.